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Presidential aide arrested over plane crash

President Paul Kagame's chief of protocol, Rose Kabuye, suspected in the 1994 downing of a plane carrying Rwanda's former Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana, was arrested in Germany under a French arrest warrant.

"She was arrested on her arrival at the Frankfurt airport. Germany was bound to arrest her by a European arrest warrant issued by France," a ministry spokesman said.

Kabuye is suspected of participating in the 1994 downing of a plane carrying Rwanda's former Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana.

Habyarimana's death triggered a genocide in the east African country in which some 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were slaughtered by Hutu extremists over 100 days.

A former deputy, Kabuye figured among nine arrest warrants issued by a French judge in 2006 against those close to Kagame whom he suspected of being implicated in Habyarimana's death.

Rwanda immediately severed its diplomatic ties with France.

Kabuye sparked controversy by visiting Germany in April as part of an official delegation headed by Kagame.

At the time, Berlin acknowledged the government was aware of the French arrest warrant, but said German law prevented it from taking action against representatives of foreign states or their delegations it had invited to visit.

This time Kabuye "was at the Frankfurt airport on a private basis," a diplomat told AFP.